When thinking about the game I want to be given the most game of the year awards, the one that springs to mind most is Hitman 3. This is a game that’s pretty much shaped my year. Throughout the first three months of lockdown in the UK, I was blasting through a lot of the content the game has to offer on a regular basis. I’ve really enjoyed my time with the game, and I’ve enjoyed the rest of the stuff that’s come out over the course of the past year even more. However, it’s that additional content that’s really let the game down from being as much as it could be.
You see, Hitman 3 was a great game. It’s not perfect though. The final mission really lets it down, and it hurts the player base because it’s so different from what the rest of the game makes you expect from it. There’s very little opportunity to get interesting kills, and there’s nothing interesting you can mess around with outside of a weird type of ending that doesn’t necessarily make sense with what the whole story has shown you so far. While the rest of this year’s content has made up for some of that, it’s not been enough to redeem the whole game.
What I will say is that the user-generated content in the game has completely revamped the community. It’s a great feeling to see players making meaningful additions to the game to make up for the lack of content elsewhere. I have the best time playing these Contracts, which is why they’re so important and a big part of the experience. However, there’s still more that could have made Hitman 3 even better. The multiplayer mode from Hitman 2 is one thing, but there’s also the fact that new elements could be added to the game from the new Escalations.
My hope is that Hitman 3 Year Two makes Hitman 3 worthy of being a game of the year contender. The thing is, these games now live on for much longer than their initial release would suggest, so I hope that the community is just as active this time next year.